


Heaven Help Us

by megmegly



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:23:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megmegly/pseuds/megmegly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the south, they've passed a lot of churches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heaven Help Us

**Author's Note:**

> written as a result of bad autocorrect and sam's insistance that a ray/christ fic was the way to go.

It's the south, they’ve passed a lot of churches. That’s the only explanation Ray can come up with as inspiration for the ethereal light that seems to shine from somewhere just behind Bob’s body, or for the gleaming circlet hanging suspended in the air just above his head.

“…Dude?” He can’t help the squeak of surprise in his voice at Bob’s sudden appearance in the lounge when he’d thought everybody had gone to sleep, but he slaps a hand over his mouth to muffle it a second too late anyway.

“My Child.” Bob’s smile is warm and bright, really fucking uncharacteristic of the standard Bryar calm.

“Um..” Ray peers through the gleam of the back lounge, trying to read Bob’s expression, searching for the smirk hidden in the corner of his mouth that he can never seem to hide whenever he’s trying to punk someone.

“Do not be alarmed,” Bob continues, and the eerie softness of his voice unnerves something in the pit of Ray’s stomach, but he ignores it. “I come only to help you.”

“How are you even doing that?” Ray’s voice comes out as incredulous, which he’s grateful for after the way he fucking squealed earlier, and the strength in it reassure him slightly. “Man, that’s pretty fucking creepy..”

Bob chuckles genially and leans forward, resting his hand lightly on Ray’s shoulder. “So young, so troubled. So very much still to learn.”

“Shut the fuck up dude, I’m older than you!” He shrugs off Bob’s hand and darts around him to try and spot te lamp he must have set up. He probably got frank to hold it for him, he thinks – the fucker owes him after the incident last week with Bob’s drumsticks and Mikey’s.. yeah. Anyway, the room’s empty; both lampless and frankless, and when he pulls back he’s expecting the light to have vanished along with it’s source but.. no. It’s still there.

That is.. not right.

‘Bob..? Dude, you’re scaring me a little now..’ The tremor in his voice is really fucking obvious and at any other time Bob would have given him serious shit for it, but as he searches Bob’s face desperately for any signs that this is some elaborate joke Ray can’t detect any flicker of amusement.

“Bob is sleeping, Raymond. As you should be.” Bob squeezes his shoulder in what is obviously mean to be a comforting manor but instead only serves to freak Ray the fuck out even more. “But your mind is troubled.” The hand on his shoulder suddenly presses downwards and Ray finds himself sinking down onto the couch. “I understand why it is that you find yourself unable to relax.”

“You.. what?” Ray doesn’t know what to say, what to think. This is really fucking weird behavior for Bob and he really doesn’t want to consider the possibility that he’s drunk or stoned. What with Gerard being.. how he is at the moment, Bob knows how he needs to act, everyone does. It’s how they’ve all been getting through the days right now, concentrating, one moment after the next tied to the need to be there for eachother, for Mikey especially.

Eerie light and fucking halo aside though, it’s the only solution Ray’s got.

“Bob, dude, have you taken something?” He tries to keep the accusation out of his voice, really he does, but it’s difficult with the events of the last few weeks hanging over them in a stormcloud of pain and worry and he winces at how harsh he sounds. Bob chuckles again, low and soft just like before, and Ray groans.

“Bob, seriously? Really, really fucking bad timing man.” In retrospect though, he can’t really blame him though. He’s considered it himself a couple of times, just a little, just to ease the passing of the days otherwise spent on edge, always watching, worrying, always with one eye open and acutely trained. But no. He can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone; not to himself, not to the others and certainly not to Gerard. A flare of anger suddenly startles him as it rushed through his bloodstream, rattling his bones and making him boil and seethe. Fucking Bob.

Again with the chuckling, and Ray has to fight the urge to put his fist through something. “Raymond, listen to me. Your friend Bob is asleep in his bed. I am simply,” Bob pauses, considering. “Borrowing his body while he slumbers.”

“You’re borrowing his body.” Ray monotones, and this time can’t ignore the unnerving sense of unease that uncoils in his belly. Even when he’s tripping, Bob isn’t normally this weird..

“You called to me, Raymond. You asked me to help you, and so I came.”

“You.. came?” He doesn’t understand what’s going on now, he really fucking doesn’t, and he’s praying that the others will wake up, discover them here so that he doesn’t have to deal with this on his own. He’s lost and he has no idea how to handle this, and he’s so tired, all he wants to do is sleep and his brain fucking hurts and- “Bob please, what-“

“Ray.” He stiffens. There’s power in the voice, a tone that Ray’s never heard from Bob’s mouth before. Hell, he’s never heard it from anyone’s mouth before. “Listen to me.”

He nods mutely under the penetrating blue-eyed gaze that is suddenly fixed on him then. “You prayed to my father. You asked him for his advice, and for his strength in aiding the plight of your friend.”

And suddenly Ray gets it. Or, at least, he thinks he does. “Your father?” he whispers, peering up at Bob’s face through the gloom of the lounge. Bob smiles calmly back down at him.

“My father,” he nods. “He heard you Raymond. He hears everybody, and he heard you, He heard your fears, your worries, your deepest troubles, and he sent me to tell you not to give up hope. Your cause is not lost, Ray. Do you understand me?”

“Gerard.” Ray whispers.

He understands. He can’t quite believe that this is anything more than a dream, no more real than the giant, talking Les Paul his brain had orchestrated for him last night had been, but he know with a direct certainty that this angel – for that is clearly what it is, clearly and quite breathtakingly, - know’s how he’s feeling. Knows about his insomnia, knows the desperation with which he’s been clinging to his sanity as he struggles through each moment of every day and knows the length to which it pushes him. He know’s Ray’s boundaries, and he understands how close they are to breaking. He knows, and isn’t judging him.

“Is he going to die?” he whispers, and then shivers involuntarily. It’s a question everyone’s been too afraid to even consider, especially with Mikey so comatose and Frank so compressed and Ray so.. he doesn’t even know. God only knows what he’d do if Gerard... Which, Ray realizes with a jolt, might be closer to the truth than he could ever have imagined. And now it’s been voiced all the reasons that he had to keep it locked up tight in the back of his brain come flooding out; now it seems so acutely possible. Acutely, possibly, real.

Bob’s face darkens. His eyes sadden, losing some of their aqua sparkle, and his mouth turns down at the corners and Ray can feel the sympathy radiating out of him in waves.

“There will come a point,” he begins, and Ray feels his heart plummet abruptly and completely out of his body. “when he will want to. That is not a truth which I am able to conceal from you, Ray.” A lone tear begins to carve a slow path down his Ray’s face. “He will be uncontrollable, inconsolable, and will learn to hate himself so completely that he will be unable to believe in a world where he can still exist.” More tears join the first and he makes no move to brush them away. His chest is closing up and he can’t think, can’t breathe.. can only listen as Bob continues. “However,” and suddenly Ray feels the tiny hitch of his heart, rekindling, fluttering back up through his legs and belly and chest to come to rest finally in his throat; a thrumming, pulsating flicker of pure hope..

“He will not.” It’s at this that Ray finally loses his composure. Head in his hands, he begins to cry, sobbing quietly but earnestly as the tension of the past few days floods out of him, finally. Finally..

“The road ahead is not easy Ray, you must understand this,” he tries to nod through the tears. He does understand, and the idea terrifies him, but right now all his can focus on is the acute relief that has totally paralyzed him, frozen in place by hope and respite and something that under any other circumstances he might have identified as joy. “he will draw on your strength and support, use it to recover, and he will be reborn from the ashes of the self he so deeply despises.”

A watery chuckle escapes Ray’s lips. He can’t help it; that’s so Gerard. He tries to speak, tries to say something, anything, but can’t find the words to express just how grateful he is. He’s not sure he even understands himself the real depths of the thanks that he knows need to be passed on. It’s just too much to voice. He’s going to be okay..

“He is.” The smile in Bob’s voice is evident but Ray stiffens. He hadn’t said that out loud..

“True.” Bob chuckles again, and squeezes his arm once, lightly. “Have hope, Raymond. My father and I shall not forget you.” He feels a light kiss pressed to his forehead, and shudders at the touch. Blessed, his mothers voices rings in his mind.

Ray sniffs loudly and then sets about composing himself as best he can before looking up, ready to respond, ready to know. He has so many questions he wants to ask, there are so many answers that he craves, but-  
Bob is gone. He looks around, and then gets up and peers through the dark of the bunks to the brighter but still dimly lit main lounge but there’s no sign of movement; the bus is still and silent. Calm.

Huh.

He falls asleep deeply confused, but the sleep that washes over him is the easiest and the best he’s has for a long time.

 

Two weeks later, Brian Schechter receives a phone call from Gerard Way and has to talk him down from a severely depressed and suicidal state. Shortly after, the band leaves for Japan. Gerard disappears before a show. Frank Iero sends out a short internet plea for information on his whereabouts, but the worst is feared. Gerard is discovered, hours after the band has given up hope. He makes a promise to his brothers; swears that he will get better. Seventeen days later, Gerard is completely clean and sober.

Ray Toro makes a short trip on the day of Gerard’s complete recovery. He refuses to tell anyone where, but when he returns he has a smile on his face for the first time in moths and so his band members don’t press the issue.

Ray wears a crucifix around his neck every single day for the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd.  
> [ARTWORK! can be found here.](http://megmegly.livejournal.com/2065.html)


End file.
